1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of global communication networks (e.g., Internet) and, in particular, to an online system and method that pairs or matches, in a customized, intelligent manner, users of a global communication network with providers of goods and services, utilizing a unique domain name request and linking service and an intelligent system of comparing and matching users with providers of such goods and services, ultimately facilitating a business transaction between said user and said provider(s).
2. Description of Background and Related Art
An ever-increasing number of online providers of goods and services, coupled with unprecedented and exponential growth of online consumer traffic, has placed consumers of online goods and services at risk of experiencing information and advertising overload. Every day, more than three thousand domain names are registered through Network Solutions, Inc. (“NSI”) for just the “.com”, “.net” and “.org” versions of domain names. Moreover, tens of thousands of new users join the Internet each day across the world, a rate which even according to the most skeptical predictions will continue to experience exponential growth. With less than half of all companies in the United States currently offering products and services online, the real crush of online commerce has yet to be experienced. Indeed, it is estimated that over 1.5 million small businesses alone will be offering goods or services online by the year 2002.
To date, an online consumer or potential consumer of goods or services has either already determined his or her source of such goods or services, and therefore just visited the web page or e-commerce presence of such source, or has attempted to locate reputable and reliable sources of the desired good or service employing meta search engines and the like. The former approach has been unduly complicated due to the fact that, despite the almost ubiquitous use of universal resource locators (URLs) in advertising and promotional materials, known sources of goods or services are not always located at the “.com” version of their famous marks or names. In other words, for example, going to “unitedairlines.com” might not always produce the desired result, since, for a variety of reasons, United Airlines' online presence might actually be located at “united-airlines.com”, “united_airlines.com”, “unitedairlines.net”, “ua.com”, or the like. After several attempts, one discovers that the site is actually located at “ual.com”. Additionally, even once the correct URL is determined, the web presences for many well-known sources for traditional goods and services are little more than online advertisements, often lacking true e-commerce functions (i.e. online sales) capability. Accordingly, reliance on this method of identifying online sources of desired goods and services is limited at best.
The latter approach, using search engines and the like to locate sources of goods and services, is practically useless to would-be consumers due to the imprecise and voluminous nature of results produced by same. For example, a recent search for “airline reservations” on the popular meta search engine DogPile® (www.dogpile.com) produced 27,976 results (“hits”). Not only does such an example illustrate the overwhelming volume of information produced in response to virtually any search request, but a quick, more detailed, review of the first 20 or so hits (purportedly ranked in order of “relevance” to the search request) revealed that a number of such “relevant” hits were not sources of such services, but were actually mere uses of one or both of the key words of the search request within other, unrelated contexts. Moreover, even where a potential consumer is successful in locating a source from search results produced by a search engine, the reputation and reliability of such source is often unclear. Accordingly, use of meta search engines in an attempt to locate desired goods and services online is as often frustrating as it is ultimately unsuccessful.
Even assuming proper identification and location of a desired provider is ultimately achieved by a consumer, consummation of one or more business transactions between a consumer and a provider is often unnecessarily complicated, sometimes to the point that the proposed transaction is precluded altogether, due, at least in part, to unfamiliar functionality or appearance of the provider's site or the current requirement that basic information needed to complete a business transaction (e.g., payment instructions, delivery and shipping information, purchase preferences) must be repeatedly and manually provided by the consumer at each provider site. It is estimated that, currently, up to 40% of potential online transactions are ultimately not completed due to interactivity problems encountered by the consumer at the provider's site. Moreover, existing automated search systems capable of simply locating providers of goods and services (e.g., Sherlock™ from Apple Corp.) do not also provide a consumer with comparative pricing and availability or other comparative information regarding such goods and services. As an example, it is of little value to know that companies A, B & C offer limousine service in Manhattan. What is much more valuable to a potential consumer of such services is to immediately know that companies A & C, but not company B, have limousines available for the time period the consumer desires, and that company A offers that service at a lower price than company C.
The foregoing dilemma provides an opportunity for a unique system and method to serve as an intelligent intermediary between the consumers and the providers of online goods and services. To address this opportunity, there is a need for a system and method that, in response to an extremely simple and intuitive user request, can: (1) intelligently select and identify one or more, and preferably several, reputable and reliable providers of desired goods and services from which a potential consumer may choose one or more particular providers; and (2) provide the potential consumer with comparative pricing and availability (and, if needed other) information about the identified providers' goods and services so as to facilitate a fully-informed decision by the potential consumer as to which one or more providers with whom they desire to transact business.
In addition, there is often a need for a potential consumer to be informed regarding providers of logically-related goods and services. For example, a consumer of hotel reservations in Los Angeles will also likely have a need for providers of: rental cars; directions in Los Angeles; airline reservations, and the like.
There is also the need for such a system to include a common database of information regarding each consumer. Such a database would operate to eliminate repeated and manual provision of basic information required to complete online transactions. There is further a need for a system and method that provides a variety of other useful, ancillary features to the primary service of pairing online consumers and providers of goods and services, such as a feature that maintains the privacy of a consumer while they are communicating with the providers and a feature which selectively and confidentially shares personal information (e.g., credit card account information) of the consumer with an approved provider to facilitate the desired online transaction. Here again, a common database could facilitate the provision of such ancillary services.
Such a system would ideally operate not only with existing computer and telecommunications devices (e.g., pagers, hand-held personal communication devices), but also with future Internet-capable devices (e.g., vehicle-based telematic devices) for accessing a global communications network, providing a consistent and familiar interactive experience with a consumer regardless of how, and through what communication means, the system was accessed. The system would also ideally accommodate and interact with global positioning system-based applications, traditional and biometric security devices and voice activation/recognition and audio response systems. As more greatly detailed below, the foregoing and other needs are satisfied by the system and method of the present invention.